| Sampson believes report of Saudi-U.S. deal
William Sampson, the Canadian man imprisoned in a Saudi Arabia jail on espionage and murder charges, says he's convinced he was released as part of a deal with U.S. authorities to free Saudi terror suspects held at the American base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In an interview with The Canadian Press Sunday, Sampson said a New York Times report that outlined the deal sounds plausible to him.
"I believe it's accurate,'' he said from Britain, where he has lived since being released from prison in August 2003 after spending close to three years in a Riyadh jail.
"It confirms information that I have found from different sources myself over the last nine months."
The New York Times reported in its weekend edition that the release of a number of Britons last year by Saudi Arabia was tied to a deal involving the release of Saudi Arabian militants held at Guantanamo Bay. While the report doesn't specifically name Sampson, it includes a photo of him.
Sampson was released after 31 months of incarceration around the same time five Britons and two others convicted of guerrilla attacks in Saudi Arabia were set free. The Saudi terror suspects were returned to their home country in May 2003. There was no indication at the time the two events were linked.
A U.S. official with knowledge of the negotiations was quoted by the Times as saying, "There is a link," adding, "this was two courses that converged and had a mutual attractiveness to them."
The report said the prisoner exchange that finally freed Sampson was engineered by Robert Jordan, the American ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
Sampson says the report sounds reasonable.
"It's my information that the Saudis themselves broached the idea of an exchange,'' he said. "We were used from the very, very outset as hostages, and this had been deliberate from the start, to use us as a means of leverage against western governments."
Sampson said he believes the report is accurate because it jibes with documentation he has seen from the Belgian government that refers to a supposed arrangement to release detainees from Guantanamo. The documents were shown to Sampson by Raf Schveyns, a Belgian citizen who was among the westerners held by the Saudis.
A National Security Council spokesman is denying there was any deal. "There is no recollection here of any linkage between these two actions," says Sean McCormick.
McCormick describes the return of the Saudis as "part of the normal policy of transferring detainees from Guantanamo for prosecution or continued detention."
Sampson was imprisoned in December 2000, along with a Briton and a Belgian, for a series of bombings earlier that year. The Canadian citizen faced beheading for his alleged role in the attacks. While he confessed to the attacks on video, Sampson later said he was tortured into it.
Canada's Foreign Affairs Department is not commenting. Spokeswoman Jenni Chen says the department is aware of the Times report and is seeking to gather further information. | |
